updated 04:25 pm EST, Mon March 8, 2010

Apple notoriously hesitant about Mac games

Apple participated in bringing Valve games and the Steam platform to Macs, says John Cook, Valve's director of Steam development. Cook elaborates that Valve has been "working with them [Apple] a bunch" while growing accustomed to Mac development. "They've been a great partner so far and we look forward to growing our relationship with them over time," he tells AppleInsider.

Apple has been notoriously unsupportive of the Mac game industry, typically apathetic towards providing gaming-level hardware or software frameworks. Valve itself has complained of being unable to get Apple's help in the past. Cook now comments however that the Mac is a "very attractive platform for entertainment as a service," and that Valve has been cooperating with Apple and videocard makers to improve OpenGL support, both for first- and third-party games.

While no Valve iPhone or iPad titles are in development, Cook does add that the initial wave of Mac products in April should be joined by some simultaneous third-party releases. "Each game will have its own performance requirements in terms of CPUs, memory, and graphics and we expect they will be comparable to running on Windows. The Steam client itself is very lightweight," the director notes.